In a major city like Los Angeles, at what income level is one considered rich? (Beverly Hills: apartment, rental)

[MordinSolus]

Originally Posted by disgruntled la native

Exactly, I agree. Being truly rich I feel is knowing, with all practical certainty, that you never have to work or worry in your life and you can be comfortable.

You can't be rich if you have to work ever?

[disgruntled la native]

if you HAVE to, as in, you'll go into poverty if you don't, yeah. I know lots of rich people like yourself work to stay busy or because they like to.

[tommy64]

To live the "L.A. lifestyle", which means you have a nice house and a late model BMW/Mercedes and wear clean clothes to work, you'd need a minimum of 175k per year.

[Lovehound]

Originally Posted by tommy64

To live the "L.A. lifestyle", which means you have a nice house and a late model BMW/Mercedes and wear clean clothes to work, you'd need a minimum of 175k per year.

Bah. I have the nice house but I'm not into cars. I have a 7 year old 4x4 SUV that I really like, and unlike a lot of 4x4 owners I actually drive mine into the back country (in Utah and Arizona).

I dress like a slob and part of it is that I work at home, and I don't really care what people think. In fact I have to head over to the supermarket in a few minutes and I'm wearing sweat pants, worn out Reeboks, and a black Metallica T-shirt that my dog got all hairy. I get along fine with the employees and customers at the supermarket because of my cheerful attitude. I've always got a smile and a kind word for anybody I run into at the supermarket (or shopping anywhere).

I don't make any 175K or even near that, but on the other hand since I work at home (self employed) I have no commuter expense, no fancy clothing expense, no fancy car expense. I love to cook so I mostly feed myself from food I cook from fresh ingredients, so I don't have a very high food budget either.

I think it depends on your lifestyle. And I think there's more than one "L.A. lifestyle." There isn't any fixed definition of that.

[MordinSolus]

Originally Posted by Lovehound

I have to head over to the supermarket in a few minutes and I'm wearing sweat pants, worn out Reeboks, and a black Metallica T-shirt that my dog got all hairy.

Be careful. Everyone will think you're a movie star, dressed like that.

[Lovehound]

Originally Posted by MordinSolus

Be careful. Everyone will think you're a movie star, dressed like that.

LOL! I wish I had the looks of a leading man movie star, but alas if I were a movie star I'd be a character actor with my average looks, quirky sense of humor and devil may care attitude about fashion.

Actually one of the things I like most about California living as opposed to perhaps NYC is that even at work many of us -- even in professional jobs -- dress casual. Now if you're a banker or other career in that strata of course you wear a good suit, tie, expensive shoes, and are all around well groomed.

But in my career as an engineer the mode of attire for most engineers was T-shirt, jeans or equivalent, sneakers. From what I've seen in other companies most of the workers dress that way too.

Well I hear they dress formally in many occupations in NYC. I haven't ever been there and it's one of my lifelong dreams to reach my final reward without ever seeing NYC except on TV.

[SportyandMisty]

The title of this post is "In a major city like Los Angeles, at what income level is one considered rich?"

Is the use of "like" above grammatically incorrect? I'm thinking of those old Winston cigarette commercials. Would it be more grammatically acceptable to say "In a major city such as Los Angeles, at what income level is one considered rich?"

[SportyandMisty]

Originally Posted by motivated15

That doesn't answer my question. My question is solely by income not by wealth. I'm not asking for you to define rich according to an individuals net worth. I am asking whats considered rich by a persons income.

Thanks

Income? $5 Million per year.

[Lovehound]

Sorry my pedantic friend but "In a major city like Los Angeles... etc." is grammatically correct although "such as" has a more pleasing sound to it.

Compared to some titles I've seen in forums it's refreshing to see a title that indicates what the topic is.

How many posts have you seen titled like "need help" ???

[Csonka]

IMO rich is never having to work again and where you can live off interest on your income. That being said and assuming a very low rate of return of 1%, I think you could get nicely by in Los Angeles on $200,000 to $300,000 in income assuming your house is paid for. So that to me means rich is somewhere like a net worth of $30 million. Anything more than that and it is just a bigger version of something that is already pretty good.

But money is money. You can be happy with not much of it if you have a certain personality.